I Always Knew
by Jaye8025
Summary: AU; Jane separates from Casey after 16 years of marriage, committing to finally living an authentic life, true to herself. Details her struggle with turning her world upside down, as well as her past that has shaped who she is. Enter Maura... Some story lines are canon from the show, others are not. Rizzles for sure.
1. Chapter 1

It was the third week into her newly single life, the tears from her separation with Casey still fresh, still forming in _his_ eyes each time they saw each other. Jane had resigned herself to accepting that perhaps his ability to cry—a trait she no longer possessed—would allow him to move on sooner, as soon as his hurts were all cried out. It had been years since she was able to seek comfort in the release a good cry would bring. So long, she didn't remember the feeling enough to miss it.

Spring was just underway, the winter-dead trees budding with dots of green on the horizons of the city streets she drove to take her to work, to pick up the kids from school, to drop them off with Casey. The first signs of life brought by warmer temperatures and longer days were always the much needed boost to Jane's "glass-is-half-empty" personality. Her outlook had not always been so bleak, but as years sped by, it seemed as though the universe was steadily trying to prove its' point that she was not destined to find happiness. Just a couple of weeks ago, her spirits were unusually high as she allowed herself the chance to feel whatever emotions came about during the move away from her home of 16 years. She signed a lease for an apartment only a few miles away from the modest house she became a wife and mother in. The new place had more than enough room for her and the children (at least she hoped it would). It would be tough getting acquainted with new surroundings herself, and she convinced herself that the kids would grow to call it their second home.

Three weeks ago, Casey sat on the sofa at home, Jane's now _former_ home, fingers clicking away on his laptop. It was the first day of April, and Jane fleetingly wondered if she chose the best day to move out. She wasn't superstitious, but seeing as how she was making a life-altering decision that affected not only her but the three people she loved most in this world, it did cross her mind that it was April Fool's day. Dismissing it as a silly thought, she continued to drag a small dresser from the back of the house, an extra piece of storage they had kept in their closet, to the living room so she could load it up on the truck. Casey never looked up, but continue to type, seemingly engrossed in whatever he was doing. What didn't cross Jane's mind was to ask for him to lift one finger to help. He was angry, bitter, and hurt by the current state of Jane's doings. There was no way he would extend help to his wife if the help she needed was to move out of their family home. She struggled to lift the dresser over the threshold and onto the front porch, but he pretended to pay no mind. _He would just bang it into the wall anyway_ , Jane thought. He had never been helpful around the house, and obviously this was not the day he would turn over a new leaf. Once she caught her breath, Jane bent her knees to pick up the dresser closer to the ground, and heaved it onto the edge of the truck, sliding it forward as far as it would go. She hoped he heard her groan with exertion, thinking that perhaps years down the road he would feel like an ass for his childish behavior.

Later that evening, in her near empty, stale smelling duplex, Jane tried to envision how it might one day feel cozy, like a home instead of a ghost-like shell of a place. She had left most of the household things with Casey and the kids, as the only way she knew to live was to put the feelings and well being of others ahead of her own. She didn't need a bed to sleep in right now, but as long as Luke and Olivia had warm comfortable places to sleep, little else mattered. It stung to know that she wouldn't be able to afford to buy beds for her kids at the new place yet, which meant they would be spending more time with Casey for now. She had never spent much time away from the kids, always making sure to put them to bed with prayers and goodnight kisses whenever possible. This was almost everyday, with an occasional change in schedule if she were sick or on a rare night out with a few coworkers. Above all transitions and adjustments to be made upon leaving the life she knew, separating from her husband and stepping into an unknown world of living an authentic life, being apart from her children would be what saddened her most.


	2. Chapter 2

Days turned to weeks as Jane began to settle in to her new home, and her new life. It certainly wasn't what she had expected for herself, to be starting over just months away from turning 40. The phrase starting over didn't even seem to accurately describe how upside down everything felt.  
Instead of the domesticity she participated in for over a decade, trying to live up to her imagined standards of being a good wife and mother, she took on the role of single mom and sole breadwinner for her very own household, not yet living up to what she hoped to provide for her children. _In time_ , she thought, _life will seem normal again._

Jane and Casey agreed on joint custody of Luke and Olivia, dividing their time with the kids as equally as possible, and committing to keeping their personal lives out of the court system. Casey's job with the VA meant he worked a steady, predictable schedule, with weekends and evenings off. Since the criminals of Boston did not adhere to a schedule for committing their crimes, Jane's hours as a homicide detective were as unpredictable as the reasons for the murders that took place in her city. Despite this obstacle, she managed to see Luke and Olivia after work fairly often, squeezing in precious time whenever possible. The few nights that were hers to have the kids spend the night were valued beyond what she originally expected. She'd been in the new place for almost three months now, and it was finally feeling like her own space. The kids' rooms were set up with some of their favorite things, as well as comfy new beds that she was able to purchase not too long after moving in.

What kept her from being able to call it "home" was not necessarily that it still felt new; she realized after many evenings spent pondering all of the changes that had occurred recently, that throughout her life, nowhere had ever felt like _home_. Her dwellings were always comfortable, and she was able to personalize the spaces she was living in, but ever since she could remember, there was always a lack of satisfaction in where she laid her head to rest each night. Home to Jane meant a feeling of peacefulness, a contentment and feeling of being complete that never failed to elude her. The older she got, the more she became resigned to "home" being a fantasy that was created in her mind by the fictional families she saw in movies and on tv. It was likely to remain a fantasy, and the more Jane considered this, the more she believed it.

Casey had proposed to her after a two year courtship, following his four year enlistment with the Army. Jane was 23 and Casey was 25 when they were married, their engagement culminating in a beautiful outdoor mid-summer wedding. Although Jane had a minor infatuation with Casey in high school, she had not been persuaded to go out with him until they reconnected a few years later when they ran into each other at a party of a mutual friend.

 _Persuaded_ , Jane often thought. _I had to be talked into going out with him in the first place._

Casey was more than pleased to be dating Jane, with hopes of their new relationship turning into something long-term and meaningful. Within a week of their first date, the pressure to settle down and pop out grandbabies was coming forth in spades from Jane's mother, Angela. This behavior from Mrs. Rizzoli was not new, and Jane had come to expect it with any man she made it to a second date with. But now, with Casey, she felt like it was time to settle down with a kind, safe man that could provide her family with what they wanted, what they expected of Jane. To settle down and have a husband, to create a family and live happily ever after. To settle.


	3. Chapter 3

The months leading up to Casey and Jane's separation were fraught with more negative emotions than they had ever experienced together combined. There were pleas, offers for compromise, and Casey's daily begging with Jane to try to make things work. And there were questions... so many questions. Jane had been mulling over her discontent the previous spring and summer, the inner turmoil and battle within herself raging silently as she worked things out in her own head. She loved Casey, and cared for him as she always had. But she was not in love with him. The life she thought she could lead when she agreed to be his wife was quickly dissipating before her eyes, the life she had sworn to herself that would be enough.

As Jane had said "I do" so many years ago, she knew that she was entering a commitment that was sacred, and she took her vows seriously. In her mind, she fully believed that a marriage could survive without her being in love with the man she took as her husband. He loved her, she knew and could feel that he was absolutely in love with her. That alone is what she felt would sustain them, and if they were fortunate enough to have a family, that's all she would need. She decided the day he proposed, that without doubt, it was safer to keep the love of her family than risk losing them by loving who she actually wanted. After all, family was permanent. Love could leave her at any time with nothing but a broken heart, but her parents and her brothers-they were there for life.

 _A long as I pretend to be who they want me to be_ , she thought. Jane did not fool herself into believing that her family's Catholic faith was a matter of convenience, an accessory to be used or abandoned at whim. It was deep-seated, rooted, and engrained in their identities as people. Their morals, values, and ethics all hinged on the Good Book and the tenants of Catholicism that were drilled into their fresh little minds at an early age. Faith came without questioning the alternative; it came with questions, for sure, but never a doubt that it would be absent from their lives. So many antiquated practices and teachings were wrestled with in Jane's mind after every Sunday mass, and were never really settled or dismissed, but continued to roll around in her mind like a loose pinball arbitrarily pinging from one obstacle to the next. Never settling, never finding their way back home.

The summer before Jane moved away from Casey, an awakening of sorts began to take place within her. This wasn't an epiphany or sudden enlightenment that one associates with such a revelation, as Jane had unequivocally discovered in her adult life that light bulbs don't actually go off over one's head at such an awareness. Life was nothing like she imagined, like nothing she saw her friends and family live, and thankfully, not always like what her career exposed her to. Life was sometimes beautiful and poignant, with moments of genuine love and affection interspersed with everyday monotony. The flip side of the coin is that life can be brutal, heartbreaking, and sad, with longer moments of loneliness enveloping those everyday mundane motions. For years, it seemed Jane frequently lost to the fates' flip of that coin, enduring trauma, loss, and tragedy more often than not, and succumbing to hidden loneliness behind her happy facade. The years she put into her marriage and the oath to herself to put other's feelings before her own saw years of hard work held fast by an odd, contrasting dedication to be something she wasn't. She vowed to herself to put her wants aside forever... or as long as forever could seem to her, and assuredly for as long as Casey wanted her as his wife. When Luke was born, this commitment became easier. Being a mother seemed to soothe Jane's dissatisfaction with settling, and she had to put very little effort into mothering. She wanted children so badly, for so long, and the reality of having her own child that needed her checked all her boxes of life's desires, for the moment. Olivia came along soon after, and life actually felt _good_. Jane thrived as a mother to her small children, feeling needed and loved by these two tiny people who depended on her to sustain their lives. She felt as though her life finally had purpose. The events of her past that she longed to forget became blurry, barely-there and easier to dismiss than before motherhood. She simply didn't have time to focus on herself, when there were diapers to be changed, kids to be fed, bathed, and put to bed. How could she think of the memories that haunted her when there were precious, chubby-cheeked angels telling her that they loved her, calling her "Mommy"? They were the antidote to the venom life had dispensed to Jane Rizzoli, the fair trade for a life resigned to not being in love.


End file.
